Sunday, April 14, 2013

hujung minggu baru

Muscat -
The biggest news on Saturday this week in Oman was not just the
announcement of the new weekend from May 1, which will now be on Friday
and Saturday for the entire country.

For the first time, His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said has directed
that the nation – both public and private sectors - must follow the
same period of holidays on all national and religious occasions. The
statement by the Council of Ministers also said that the number of
holidays will be determined by the existing Royal Decrees.
Typically, the period of holidays for the public sector on all
occasions from Eid to National Day usually exceed that of the private
sector by one to three days.
Saturday's decision also means that Saudi Arabia remains the only GCC country to have Thursday-Friday as its official weekend.
A clearly excited chairman of the Oman Chamber of Commerce and
Industry (OCCI), Khalil al Khonji, told Muscat Daily, “We have been
waiting for this for a long time and I am happy to say that this will
help us attract more Omanis to the private sector. We are deeply
thankful to His Majesty the Sultan for his decision on this issue.”
Khonji also pointed out that now with a fixed number of holidays,
there will be no more uncertainty with public institutions, for example
hospitals, who typically would not be able to give appointments when
longer holidays were expected due to uncertainty regarding the dates.
While the public sector has had a two-day weekend since the late
1980s, the two-day weekend for the private sector only took effect from
November 2011.
Khonji said the benefits of the Friday-Saturday weekend are manifold.
“There will no longer be families with different members following
different weekends. Now our children will also have the same weekend.
For business, this is very good news because this will shorten the gap
between us and Europe; we used to lose four days before.”
In end-2012, H H Sayyid Fahd bin Mahmoud al Said had met with senior
business leaders from the private sector to highlight the government’s
commitment and efforts to provide a healthy and conducive environment
for the private sector to flourish.
The attendance of a number of ministers and government officials as
well as the OCCI chairman at the meeting held at the Council of
Ministers' headquarters in Muscat bore testimony to the significance
the government has been attaching to the role of private players in the
overall progress of the nation.